Do I sell US stocks before dividends payout to not get taxed? Or what do people usually do?

I use FSMOne and I've bought into stocks that offer dividends as well. Their dividend handling fee is $2 and thankfully, even though the dividend is less than $2, I do not have to repay the broker the excess dividend handling charges.

But if you're talking more about the share price, it is quite negligible (even more especially in the case of Apple as can be seen from it hitting 52 week highs)

On historical records of those companies that give good dividends, the drop at the end of the years are usually lesser than the 30% tax incurred. If you are long term and got it at a low price, there is no need to sell and rebuy them later.

However, i do know of some traders who hunt for these dividends stocks at year end to collect them at a lower rate.